How AI can help European healthcare systems during a pandemic

The increased demand for everything from hospital beds to protective equipment puts tremendous pressure on healthcare systems all across Europe. Supply shortages are occurring in almost all parts of the system leading to increased risks in delivery of care.

Vamstar, one of our London Portfolio Companies, has built an artificial intelligence platform that helps suppliers to automatically remain updated on the latest contracts and tenders within the healthcare sector. As a response to the current situation and to help healthcare systems across Europe better prepare and plan for the months ahead, they have now also developed a risk-based scoring framework to understand the gaps in the supply chain.

“Healthcare supply chains have become even more fragmented on account of supply chain optimisation in the last decade so as to reduce costs”

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Extract from Vamstar's 'COVID-19 Supply Chain Risk in Europe’ report

They have extracted over five years of purchasing history from their AI-based contracting platform, with data from over 2,800 hospitals in 28 European countries, examining purchasing trends across 600 product categories – including viral detection kits, face masks, surgical gloves, respirators, and ventilators.

“With years of austerity measures in place and massive spending cuts enacted, there is ample evidence that austerity has had a massive effect on the health system ability to cope with intense shocks such as the one we are experiencing now”

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Extract from Vamstar's 'COVID-19 Supply Chain Risk in Europe’ report

The sole objective of their supply chain risk scoring is to focus on the most vulnerable parts of different healthcare systems to enable and improve quick decision making.

Interested in understanding the mechanics of healthcare financing in Europe and to dive deeper into the state of global healthcare supply chains? Read their ‘COVID-19 Supply Chain Risk in Europe’ report in full HERE.

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In the last few weeks, Vamstar has built a Supply Risk Ratings to help suppliers and buyers in the healthcare industry understand changing demand and supply patterns across various European countries. For more information about this or their other products, contact Praful Mehta, CEO, at praful@vamstar.io.